HEART-RATE, BLOOD LACTATE LEVEL AND PERCE IVED EXERTION DURING SUBMAXIMAL RUNNING - NEW NOMOGRAMS FOR THE ESTIMATION OF ENDURANCE CAPACITY

Considering the protective effect of physical activity against coronar y heart disease, the estimation of endurance capacity is not only reco mmended for sportsmen but is also useful for exercise counselling of u nfit persons. Endurance capacity can be estimated with test protocols leading to complete exhaustion, or by submaximal test procedures. Subm aximal tests have the advantage of putting less stress on subjects tha n maximal test protocols; on the other hand, they are less accurate. A s a complement to traditional submaximal test protocols based on heart rate analysis, a new subinaximal protocol is proposed based on measur ements of capillary blood lactate concentration during exercise. Incre mental tests of 319 men with wide variation of endurance capacity were used to calculate nomograms of the typical pattern of exercise-induce d increase in capillary blood lactate concentration, heart rate, and r ating of perceived exertion in relation to endurance capacity. The run ning velocity eliciting a capillary blood concentration of 4 mmol/l la ctate was selected as the parameter for endurance capacity. With the h elp of these nomograms, the 4 mmol/l-velocity could be estimated with submaximal values of lactate, heart rate or rating of perceived exerti on. The appropriateness of the nomograms was checked against the data of 100 independent maximal treadmill tests. Estimation of 4 mmol/l-vel ocity with submaximal lactate values showed good precision (with a sma ll standard deviation of +/-0.17 m/s); in contrast, the estimation of endurance capacity with submaximal values for heart rate and rating of perceived exertion showed substantially larger standard deviations (a pproximately +/-0.56 m/s). We conclude that, for estimation of enduran ce capacity from submaximal running values, the nomogram for blood lac tate concentrations can be recommended.